.(Ji6 Ui 



A^BMORI AL, 



AIND 



PETITION 



FOR LrlBBRTY 

Presented to the President of the United States and to the 
Peace Conference in Paris 

by the delegates of the 

Ukrainian Convention 

of the State of Connecticut 



on the day of the Third of August, 1919, in the Ukrainian Hall 
New Britain, Connecticut 



'ih 



In which the desires, wishes and wails of the Ukrainians are expressed in view of Poland's 
tailing into slavery five million Ukrainians as a result of a war for democracy. 



0. «f D. 
AUG 28 1919 



I 






Whoever reads these pages 
be a friend of Ukraine. 



Tlie porcentage of the Poles of Cliieago 
is in coinpavison the same as the percent- 
age of Poles in West Ukraine. Now 
imagine the Poles in Chicago arming 
themselves, closing the American schools, 
burning the American churches, banning 
the English language and taking the ad- 
ministration of the city in their hands, 
including courts, police, post office, rail- 
roads, etc., etc., etc. 

What would you say, Americans? 
Wouldn't you appeal to the world, if you 
were as defenceless as we are? 

This is what is taking place in West 
Ukraine, and this is why we make this 
appeal. 



MR. PRESIDENT: 

We, the undersigned Ukrainian delegates, the majoritj^ of whom 
are American citizens of Ukrainian descent, of the Ukrainian brother- 
hoods, societies and associations in the State of Connecticut, represent- 
ing the total population of the former residents of West Ukraine, who 
now live in Connecticut, of thirty-four thousand souls, assembled in 
their name as well as in the name of Ukraine in New Britain, Conn., 
at a convention on the day of the third of August, 1919, and speaking 
in behalf of high principles of humanity proclaimed repeatedly by 
the President of the United States, beg the President to give your 
consideration to this our solemn petition which we dispatch to you 
in defence of our native land, Ukraine, against the rapacious and im- 
perialistic Polish designs. 

The part of Ukraine in question, being the subject of this peti- 
tion, is Eastern Galicia and Kholm, the two provinces called West 
Ukraine and comprising an overwhelming majority, nearly 75 per cent, 
of the Ukrainian population, which in arrogant spite of all principles 
of justice and humanity has been by a brute force of arms conquered 
by the imperialist Polish army and forcefully and against the will 
of the population annexed to Poland. 

Those two territories, kept for nearly six hundred years under 
a heel of a severe Polish oppression, have nevertheless preserved their 
Ukrainian character up to the present time, and now, when the t'me 
seemed near for their liberation, may we not ask the question: Are 
the same prominent persons going to hurl them in the abyss of slavery 
and ruin, who, standing at the brim of the abyss, preach the lofty 
ideas of liberty to them? 

The above named territories of East Galicia and Kholm were con- 
quered by the Polish king Kasimir in the wars of 1340 — 1380, the two 
largest Ukrainian cities, Lviv (Lemberg), founded by the Ukrainian 
prince Leo, and Peremishl (the Poles and the Germans called it 
Przemysl), founded by another Ukrainian prince Peremyslav, were 
razed, and ever since that time the Polish mailed fist predominated 
physically but the Ukrainian soul and culture morally, in those ter- 
ritories. 

May we not go back to those distant ages and recollect those 
horrible times that our ancestors suffered from the Polish oppres- 
sors. So let it be permitted to us to tell of the equally cruel Polish 
persecution of the latest times, nay, of the so-called twentieth century, 
and to cite a few examples of the Polish rule in our native land, the 

3 



rule that would hardly suit the ])lack races of Africa, and which filled 
our hearts with deep resentment as it caused misery and poverty in 
our homes which we consecjuently were obliged to abandon and go 
abroad, leaving our relatives and properties at the mercy of cruel 
Polish oflEicials. 

To enjoy the blessings of predatory rule the minority of Poles in 
East Galicia were granted by the Austrian emperor an autonomy 
broader than that of any other province of Austria. The governor 
of Galicia was nominated by the Austrian emperor and only a Pole 
could be nominated for this post. Hence, all public offices of the 
central government were occupied by the Poles, for they were in 
turn nominated by the emperor at the recommendation of the governor. 
Thus in the localities purely Ukrainian there were Polish courts, 
Polish judges, notaries, police, constables, clerks, railroads, post office 
and a host of petty officials, all of whom were only the parasites living 
on taxes and sapping the national vitalities of the Ukrainian people, 
which, to be relieved of maltreatment and extortion were obliged to 
leave their country, thus making a room for a Polish colonist. Thus, 
one fifth of the Ukrainian population of that country with tears in 
their eyes were forced to leave their country and settle in Canada, 
United States of America or Brazil and elsewhere. 

The schools were centers of demoralization from universities down 
to the primary schools. All of them had to serve the purpose of 
polonizing the Ukrainian population. At the university of Lviv, after 
a long struggle the Ukrainian language was allowed as an idiom of 
instruction for a few subjects only. A Ukrainian student Kocko was 
killed by the Polish students during the fight at the university and 
the murderers were acquitted by the Polish courts. Every admission 
of a new Ukrainian professor was opposed by the Poles as a gross en- 
croachment upon Polish rights. This went so far that the governor 
of Galicia himself vetoed the decision of the Senate of the Lviv univer- 
sity to offer the chair of the Ukrainian language to Dr. Ivan Franko, 
the great Ukrainian writer and philologist widely known at home and 
abroad. And every time the Poles w^ere forced to accept a Ukrainian 
professor the fact was glorified as an example of Polish magnanimity. 
A law was passed by the autonomous Diet of Galicia prohibiting the 
establishment of Ukrainian colleges for teachers since such colleges 
would impede the Polish rulers in their scheme of polonization. Four 
million Galician Ukrainians were not allowed to have one public 
commercialor industrial school. Polonization was the first object of 
elementary schools; education the last. The Ukrainian teachers were 
sent to Western Galicia l)y the Polish School Council, to deprive the 
Ukrainians of the patriotic services of such men, and we often wit- 

4 



liessed how our children were being mutilated by the Polish teachers 
for no other offense than speaking their own mother language on their 
own soil. 

The Ukrainian industrial, cultural and agricultural institutions 
were maintained almost exclusively by individual subscriptions and 
donations, yet they all prospered and not a single one failed. But 
the Polish institutions, the competitors of the former, were fed upou 
the taxes collected from the Ukrainian population. The zenith of 
absurdity and anomaly was attained when it became a vogue with the 
Galician Diet to pass the appropriations of the central Ukrainian en- 
lightment society only after a favorable report has been received from 
the competitive Polish society. Numerous laws were passed by the 
Galician Diet to cripple the Ukrainian commerce and industry and 
we witnessed among many other things that the imaginary cattle 
diseases were invented by the Polish authorities to prevent the sale 
of the Ukrainian cattle, in order not to compete with the prices of 
cattle of the Polish landowners. 

The lawlessness of the Polish rulers found a strong supporter in 
the Austrian government as the latter needed their support in the 
parliament in passing their shameful laws. In 1907 the universal 
suffrage was introduced in Austria. The Poles immediately perceived 
that this would interfere with their intrigues in Eastern Galicia and 
exerted a strong opposition to this reform and maintained it so long 
until the Austrian government granted them exceptional privileges 
of minority votes which helped the Poles in the Ukrainian part of 
Galicia to elect 30 deputies while the Ukrainians in the same territory 
in which they constitute 75% of the population, had only 28. IMore- 
over, in Western Galicia where the Poles were in majority, the electoral 
districts were so small that they represented a maximum of 50,000 
electors, while in Eastern where the lUvrainians were in majority each 
deputy represented 100,000 electors. The elections to the Galician 
Diet were done under still more farcical conditions. The electoral laws 
governing the elections to the Galician Diet were Prussian in principle 
and diabolical in practice if one considers the firing squads of police, 
gendarmes and soldiers together with ])ribery or even non-admission 
to the voting place. To show that the power they exercised had an 
origin in the numerical strength the Polish authorities falsified the 
census enumerations by openly registering as Poles half a million 
Ukrainians of Roman Catholic religion and all the Jews of Galicia who 
speak a German jargon and who number nearly one million. These 
and other secret falsifications enable the Polish authorities to obtain 
the percentage of the Poles of Eastern Galicia as high as 38 while in 
fact it hardly surpasses the mark of 15. 

5 



Such was the government by the Poles, which stifled commerce 
and industry and pauperized the peasantry that the landlords might 
have cheaper labor, and which deprived us of our living income and 
then forced us out of the country. 

The designs to polonize the Ukrainian population of West 
Ukraine and then incorporate them to the future Poland have al- 
ways been an ostentation boast of the Poles. In the letter published 
by the Austrian emperor in Nov., 1916, the latter made it quite clear 
that he was willing to add the Ukrainian Galicia to future Poland, 
to be sure, as a recompensation for the unceasing assistance in the 
parliament in subduing the Slav nationalities of Austria. May we 
ask President Wilson and the Allies not to follow the steps of the 
defunct autocrat. 

Before the downfall of the Austrian Empire its sole means of 
safety was sought by the Austrian government, which was the trans- 
formation of the conglomerate Austrian monarchy into a federation 
of autonomous nationalities. The plan was received favorably by 
all non-German nationalities with the sole exception of the Poles who 
saw a threat against their privileged position in the Monarchy; and 
this was the first time that the Poles together with the Germans op- 
posed the government's plan. 

When the inevitable happened and the Austrian monarchy broke 
up, the Ukrainians by the mere strength of their overwhelming num- 
erical superiority took the reins of the government and proclaimed as 
independent the Ukrainian provinces of East Galicia and Kholm, the 
latter province according to the Russian census containing 60 per cent, 
of the Ukrainians and only an insignificant fraction of the Poles.*) 
As the Russian government did not cajole the Poles of Kholm as did 
the Austrian government in regard to the Poles of Galicia, the Poles 
had never been able to make such inroads in the former country as 
they did in the latter. And thus, though merciless and cruel, the 
Tsars government was less destructive in results than the Polish gov- 
ernment, still more merciless, in the Ukrainian part of Galicia. 

With the Austrian downfall, the Ukrainian government, thus set 
up after nearly six hundred years of oppression, immediatelj' acknoAV- 



*) It should be kept in memory that Kholm is a geographical expression 
embracing both the Ukrainian population in its eastern part and a narrow 
strip of the Polish population in the western. This latter, which is not 
claimed by the Ukrainians, if added to the whole of Kholm (as was done by 
the Russian census) raises the Polish population of the province 20%, but 
if separated, the Ukrainian part of Kholm will remain with 75% of the 
Ukrainians, the rest being made up of Jews, Poles and Russians. 

(.This note was not included in the text.) 



ledgcd the Jews as a separate nationality and granted the full re- 
ligious, political and educational rights to the Polish minorities. This 
government was able to cope with the difficult situation for seven 
months. All branches of its management, educational, industrial and 
political functioned in a best order, its army exceeded by its patriot- 
ism and discipline any army in Europe, and though the Poles in 
their propaganda called this army a band, an army which was able 
for seven months to withstand the greatly superior numbers, yet the 
fact remains that the "band" was so orderly that it did not commit 
a hundreth part of the atrocities as were committed by the Polish 
imperialist soldiery against the Jews and Ukrainians.*) 

Then having received arms and supplies from the Allies against 
the imaginary Bolsheviks, the Poles treacherously turned against the 
Ukrainian People 's Republic, for there were no Bolsheviks to be found. 
And having aroused the local population and caused disorder they 
appealed to the Paris Peace Conference and asked a permission to 
annex the whole of West Ukraine under the pretext of suppressing 
those disorders, but they failed to mention the fact that they them- 
selves were the authors of those disorders when they tried to coerce 
the population of the Ukrainian country. 

Thus a grave tragedy took place on the fields of West 
Ukraine when the brutal Polish mercenaries invaded the peace loving 
country in a manner comparable to the Tartar invasions centuries 
before. Thousands of incidents of pogroms and massacres marked the 
bloody trail of the Polish army. Thousands of innocent people were 
killed or injured, fifty Ukrainian churches were burned and five 
hundred others closed and thousands of Ukrainian intellectuals were 
either massacred, interned or thrown to prison. 



*) As to the alleged pcgroms committed against the Jews by the 
Ukrainians we can state that the Jews do not believe in them as firmly as 
the Poles do. As a matter of fact, the Poles who tolerate and even incite 
the pogroms become ardent and whole-hearted defenders of the Jews when 
it comes to clamor against the Ukrainian pogroms. Nobody hears of Jews 
protesting or making demonstrations against Ukraine. As a matter of fact, 
the Jews sympathize with Ukraine and the proof of it is that Senator H. P. 
Koppleman of the Connecticut Legislature who is himself a Jew spoke at the 
Convention, at which this Petition was formulated, in behalf of Ukraine with 
the warmest sympathy. The assertion of an amaturist guesser who said 
that the Ukrainians killed a round number of 120,lt00 Jews did not find much 
credence even among the Jews, as he failed to mention the time, locality, or 
produce witnesses to back his statement. There might be some sporadic out- 
breaks against the Jews in Ukraine as in any other country but the fact 
remains that the army of the Holubovich Government of West Ukraine gave 
a best protection to the Jews as well as to the Poles. 

(This note was not included in the text.) 



This national tragedy inspired us with awe and terror and We 
appeal to you as well as to all the civilized world not to let the worthy 
Ukrainian people perish under the overcharge of oppression. We, 
assembled at the convention, raise our voice of despair and pain when 
we see our native land being mutilated in every manner conceivable. 
We appeal to all those whose noble instincts of justice and equity 
were not obliterated by the sights of cruelties and tales of bloody 
battles, to rescue our nation and our families abroad and not allow 
five million human beings to be bartered on such a wholesale scale 
as cattle have never been bartered by any conference. 

The Polish authorities, seeing that they had gone too far in 
their conquest and in their restoration of "order", that the wave 
of liberalism opposed their treatment of West Ukraine, applied an 
old policy of treachery, and proclaimed an autonomy for West 
Ukraine. But having passed a law of autonomy they passed another 
law by which no landowner in Poland could possess more than 290 
acres of land if his property is in Poland, but the same law provides 
that landowners of West Ukraine can hold as many as 1,750 acres. 
And to show still better the validity of the autonomy they made a 
regulation in Galicia prohibiting the use of Ukrainian language in 
all public places. 

Such effrontery thrown to the face of Ukrainian nation and to 
all the civilized world as well, should be stopped. We demand that 
the political prostitution of the Polish imperialistic clique be put 
to end. We demand a complete independence of East Galicia and 
Kholm. We demand that the principles of selfdetermination of na- 
tions proclaimed by President Wilson hold valid. We demand that 
the Poles govern the indisputably Polish territories and no others. 

Otherwise there will be bloodshed until the extermination. The 
great democratic Ukrainian nation numbering nearly forty million 
souls will never bend to the knees of the Polish nobleman. The Presi- 
dent of the United States as well as America which gave liberty to 
the negroes are appealed to by us who speak in the name of the forty 
millions of Ukrainians to do us justice and give liberty to our brethern 
abroad. For, under the pretext that they had granted autonomy to 
the Ukranians the Polish clique tries to strangle the living nation to 
enjoy its mortal convulsions. But this should not come to pass. Tlie 
nation that could withstand six centuries of most atrocious persecu- 
tion is worthy of liberty. 

We demand a complete independence of West Ukraine. Sic fiat. 

FOLLOW THE SIGNATURES OF THE FAOULTY OF THE 
CONVENTION AND OF 154 DELEGATES. 

8 



RESOLUTION NO. 1. ADOPTED BY THE CONVENTION. 

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 
AVOODROW WILSON: 

"Whereas the President of the United States in his message to 
the Senate of the United States, delivered February 3rd, 1917, said 
that no peaee ean last, or ought to last, whieh does not recognize and 
aceept the principle that Governments derive all their just powers 
from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists 
to hand people about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were 
property, and, 

"Whereas we the delegates, representing the American citizens 
of Ukrainian descent of the State of Connecticut, at convention 
assembled in the Ukrainian Hall at New Britain, Conn., with great 
sorrow learn that the Paris peace conference is about to hand to 
Poland the provinces of East Galicia and Kliolm predominantly 
Ukrainian, without consulting the wishes of the population of these 
provinces as if the people inhabiting these provinces were mere prop- 
erty, and, 

"Whereas we are aware of barbarous and inhuman treatment of 
the civil population of the provinces of East Galicia and Kholm by 
Polish troops which presently occupy these territories, therefore, 

"We solemnly but unqualifiedly protest against any annexation 
to Poland of East Galicia or Kholm, and demand that these territories 
be united with the greater Ukrainia, and further we demand the 
immediate withdrawal of Polish troops from East Galicia and Kholm, 
and, 

"Resolve, that we respectfully petition His Excellency Woodrow 
Wilson, President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and 
the Congress of the United States, to recognize complete independence 
of the Ukrainian Republic." 

RESOLUTION No. 2. 

TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: 

"AVhereas the President of the United States in his message to 
the Senate of the United States, delivered February 3rd, 1917, said 
that no peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and 
accept the principle that Governments derive all their just powers 
from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists 
to hand people about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were 
property, and, 

"Whereas the Senate of the United States is the empowered body 
to ratify all the treaties made between the United States and foreign 
governments, and, 

9 



"Whereas we are aware of bar])arous and inhuman treatment of 
the eivil population of the provinces of East Galieia and Khohn by 
Polish trooi)s which presently occupy these territories, therefore 

"We, the delegates of American citizens of Ukrainian descent, 
and Ukrainian residents of the State of Connecticut, assembled at con- 
vention in the Ukrainian Hall in New Britain, Conn., most humbly 
pray that the Senate of the United States of America refuse the 
ratification of any treaty providing for the cession of the provinces 
of East Galieia and Kholm, predominantly Ukrainian, to Poland, 
and we further protest against barbarous and inhuman treatment of 
the civil population of East Galieia and Kholm by the Polish troops, 
which treatment is wholly devoid of all the principles of civilized 
warfare, and, 

"We further respectfully request of the Congress of the United 
States to recognize complete independence of the Ukrainian Republic." 



RESOLUTION No. 3. 

TO THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE: 

TO THE UKRAINIAN PEACE DELEGATION in Paris, and to 
GEN. SEMEN PETLURA, 

President of Ukrainian Republic : 

"The Ukrainians of the State of Connecticut at Convention in 
New Britain, Conn., requested President Wilson, and the Congress of 
the United States, to withold ratification of peace treaty with Poland 
and to recognize Ukraine's independence. If policy fails, Ukrainian 
sword will not." 

RESOLUTION No. 4. 

To dispatch the Petition also to the President of the Paris Peace 
Conference, Exc. M. Clemenceau. 



10 



jRlV STUO - W^^ GRY7 







THIS IS THE P 

USED IN THE POLISH SCHOOLS *l 

The shading of the righf upper corner has been doil 
enormous stretch of the Ukrainian territory that has been ann 
eluding the Hungarian part of it and that of Bukovina, the lat 
by Rumania). The word Rusini means Ukrainians (Rulheni 
be noted that the Ukrainian population of Eastern Galica is 
the population of the Slovaks, Hungarians or Rumanians in t 
tories. Kholm is a province north of the Ukrainian Galicia. 
is the westernmost mountainous territory of West Ukraine, a cc 
000 people. The Polish authorities seemed to have forgotten 
exert themselves to polonize it, as this territory had been joi 



ALTSTRO - W^TGRrr . 



Kozcim:! Atl.is .s/ki.|i' 




THIS IS THE POLISH SCHOOL MAP, 1907 EDITION, 



USED IN THE POLISH SCHOOLS *IN GALICIA, WHICH SHOWS THAT WEST UKRAINE IS NOT POLISH. 

emperor to the Cracow adminislration. So they thought it would he theirs forever, 
and instead they directed all their attention to the whole of Eastern Galicia whicii 

I _. ___ .!...„ ^l I, I 11..... 



The shading of the right upper corner has been done by us to show the 
enormous stretch of the Ukrainian territory that has been annexed by Poland (ex- 
cluding the Hungarian part of it and that of Bukovina, the latter being swallowed 
hy Rinuania). The word Rusini means Ukrainians ( Riilhenians). It should also 
he noted that the [Ikrainian popidation of Eastern (iaiica is more compact than 
the population of the Slovaks, Hungarians or Rumanians in their respective terri- 
tories. Kholm is a province north of the Ukrainian (Jalicia. The Lemko country 
IS the westernmost mountainous territory of West [Ikraine, a compact mass of 200.- 
000 people. The Polish authorities seemed to have forgotten about it and didn't 
exert themselves to polonize it, as this territory had been joined by the Austrian 



proved more than they could swallow. 

In 1907 the Poles did not claim that Eastern Galicia was a Polish country 

as they do now. Even i 

justice proclaimed by Presmcni >v ll^ull \^clc a^i'nci-i .n mc j^^-.ivi. ^.v/l,i,..^.ll,.^. * .i^^ 

did not protest when President Wilson offered them the "indisputably Polish ter- 

.!■,., • . ^ 1 ,1 I ._ .._ 1 

rilorie 

suppli 

of blood and iron again prevai 



n this war they would never protest if the principles of 
•siiient Wilson were applied at tlie peace conference. They 
; protest when President Wilson offered them the "indisputaldy Polish ter- 
" in his fourteen points. But the unexpected ilownpour of troops, arms and 
:s into Poland by the Allies proved stronger than justice. Will the policy 
1 _^ 1 • :„ :i;i 



The Convention was Called under the Auspices of the: 

Committee of the Ukrainian State Convention (Kev. J. Peleehovych, 

Chairman), 121 Beaver St., New Britain, Conn. 
Ukrainian National Committee, 30 E. 7th st.. New York, N. Y. 
Ukrainian Federation of U. S., 19 E. 7th St., New York, N. Y. 



The following Connecticut branches of the Ukrainian organizations 
were represented at the convention: 

Ukrainian National Associations. 
Ukrainian Workingmen's Associations. 
Associations of ''Providence." 
Associations of "Free Ukraine." 
Branches of Ukrainian Federation of U. S. 
Ukrainian Dramatic Societies of America, 
Ulirainian Athletic Associations "Sitch." 
Ukrainian Cultural Associations "Love." 
Shevtchenko Societies. 
"Ukranian Progress" Association 
Ukrainian Library Society. 
"Prosvita" (Culture) Societies. 
Ukrainian Cooperative Co's. 
St. John Societies. 
A, Bontchevsky Society. 
St. Peter and Paul Societies. 
St. Mary's Societies. 
"Ukrainian Sisterhood." 
Ukrainian Parishes of Conn. 
Ukrainian Churches of Conn. 



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